


Delivered as a Whisper

by mytimehaspassed



Category: Band of Brothers, The Pacific - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prostitution, Drug Use, M/M, Murder, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-07
Updated: 2014-11-07
Packaged: 2018-02-24 10:24:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2578163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mytimehaspassed/pseuds/mytimehaspassed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They work nights, work bars and corners and alleyways and pool halls and night clubs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Delivered as a Whisper

**DELIVERED AS A WHISPER**  
BAND OF BROTHERS/THE PACIFIC  
Babe/Roe; Roe/Snafu; Snafu/Sledge; Roe/OMC(s); Snafu/OMC(s)  
 **WARNINGS** : Prostitution; murder; drug use; violence  
 **NOTES** : So yeah this is basically Roe and Snafu as hustlers in New Orleans. Why? Because that is a thing I wanted to happen.

  
**1.**

It’s not until Snafu comes back to the house that he tells Roe about the boy who was killed. He climbs into Roe’s bed, slipping silent underneath the covers, his bare feet climbing up Roe’s legs in freezing inches, stuttering up and up and up, and Snafu places his swollen, warm mouth on the back of Roe’s neck and Roe almost wakes up enough to tell him to quit it, to move back to his own bed, but doesn’t, his eyes still shut, his mind still sinking somewhere slowly, slowly, into sleep.

“What boy?” Roe whispers, his voice rough.

Snafu hadn’t even taken a shower before he climbed into Roe’s bed, so he still smells like cheap cologne and pocketfuls of cigarettes, and he knows that Snafu knows that Roe can’t stand it, wouldn’t at any other time, but Roe also knows that Snafu doesn’t care. Snafu slips one chilled hand beneath Roe’s boxers, just resting there, and Roe doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything, doesn’t acknowledge that he wants this, that he doesn’t.

“Julian,” Snafu says eventually, scratching his nails lightly on Roe’s belly. “Shifty says they found him in an alley just a block down from Bourbon. He was stabbed through the neck with a glass bottle, Shifty says there was blood everywhere, that he died real slow.”

Roe hears another boy stumble into the room and fall into one of the beds, hears the whisper of scratches, the rustle of money, the moan of a yawn. Snafu’s hand stays where it is.

“Do the cops know who did it?” Roe asks quietly, sleep still clinging to his eyes, his mouth, his accent thicker, less fluid.

Snafu laughs, hushed, hidden by the nape of Roe’s neck, and kisses him once there and then again, saying, “I didn’t know you were so naïve, boo.”

Roe turns around in bed, Snafu’s hand sliding with him, and he opens his eyes and Snafu’s newest bruise meets him, sloping around his mouth, curling with Snafu’s smile. “Not naïve,” he says, “and not stupid, either. You gonna tell me who did this to your mouth?”

Snafu shrugs, doesn’t say a word.

Roe sighs, closes his eyes for one moment, two, forgets how to form words, forgets why he tries, forgets everything except the pulsing blood he can feel through Snafu’s fingertips, the bite of his nails. Snafu moves his hand lower beneath Roe’s boxers, curls his fingers, and Roe says, “Please,” and Snafu knows that this has never meant please yes, that this has always meant please stop.

He slides his hand back out, back up, rests his palm against Roe’s cheek. “You know where to find me,” he whispers against Roe’s mouth and Roe nods and Snafu slips out of the bed, leaving a vacuum of warmth where he used to be.

Roe doesn’t fall back asleep for the rest of the night.

***

They work nights, work bars and corners and alleyways and pool halls and night clubs.

They work until they get enough money to stop working, and then they come back to the shared (and abandoned) plantation house they – and most of the other boys for sale, the ones that don’t have places to crash – sometimes call home, to the beds pushed against every available wall, to the bottles of liquor someone has graciously picked up, to the cocaine or heroin or meth that has been left out next to someone’s forgotten rig. They get high to work and work to get high and Roe has always found that that was the worst part of this, everything they’ve done so far in New Orleans, since he brought Snafu here after Snafu had dropped out of high school, since he turned to this because finding a job – a good job, a straight job – had been much harder than he thought.

New Orleans is rough and swollen with anger, with lust, with heavy, humid nights that has Roe smiling smoothly at the men who pass him in the streets. He gets into cars and lets them take him to their home or to a motel or to an alleyway somewhere, whatever, just as long as they pay him up front, just as long as Roe gets to choose who he goes with and who he doesn’t, just as long as Roe doesn’t end up like John Julian, bleeding out slow and alone on the vomit-paved concrete with a bottle in his neck.

He had taught Snafu the signs to picking out the right johns, to attracting the sweet, doughy ones with tan lines where they’ve slipped off their wedding rings for the night, to attracting the rich ones with flashy cars and thick stacks of cash, to attracting the nice ones who don’t ask for much, who maybe only want to be talked to, something strictly non-sexual, who maybe only want a touch here, a kiss there, maybe no hands at all. He had taught Snafu how to smile so invitingly, so openly, that there might be one or two extra bills in the money the johns hand over.

He had taught Snafu how to survive.

 

 

 

**2.**

Snafu never listens.

 

 

 

**3.**

Babe meets him in a motel room that rents by the hour.

It’s not a job, he says, when Roe walks in and begins to take off his shirt. Babe’s mouth is slightly open, a wavering line on his face, and he says it again, “I’m not a job, Eugene.”

But what he really means is I’m not a john, Eugene, and Roe pulls his shirt back down and sits across from him in a ratty, mold-infested chair. It smells like disease in the room, like cleaning fluid and disinfectant and latex gloves, like the hospital his mama died in, like the one his grandma died in, too. “If this isn’t work, I can’t stay very long,” he says softly, and there’s a shutter that folds across Babe’s face.

And he wants to say, There are plenty of other jobs out there I could be doing.

And he wants to say, If I don’t get paid, I can’t eat.

And he wants to say, Please ask me to stay the night.

“Okay,” Babe says, and then pulls out a little moleskin from his jacket pocket. He’s sitting still on the bed, sitting tall, and he looks beautiful, and he looks tired. “But I need to ask you a few questions.”

Roe grips the arms of the chair hard, his nails peeling back the laminate in little half-moons. “Is this about Julian?”

“Yes,” Babe says. “Because of his line of work, we have reason to believe that the killer was one of the, uh, dates that picked him up that night.”

“Fuck, Babe,” Roe says, and stands up. “I can’t get involved, you know that.”

Babe stands up, too, holding his hands out like he wants to touch Roe and then putting them back down when he decides against it. His face looks pained. “I’m sorry, I really am, but this is a murder investigation, Eugene. I need to find out what happened.”

“I don’t know anything,” Roe says. “And neither does Snafu, so don’t even think about asking him out on a date.”

He crosses his arms and walks to the other side of the room, walks back, can’t make himself stop. He never does any speed before he sees Babe, hasn’t since Babe told him that he didn’t like it when Roe used, when he could see that Roe was not quite himself, when he could see that Roe was trying (and failing) to stay with him and in the moment. Right now, he’s feeling a little itchy, a little achy, wanting for something that will help him get through the day.

“Snafu doesn’t like me,” Babe says, and Roe laughs, and it’s dry, brittle.

“That’s an understatement.” Roe smiles with only half of his mouth, sits down on one corner of the bed, lets Babe sit next to him. “He told me that the next time you tried to pick me up, he’d march down to your precinct and tell all them cops exactly where to find you.”

Babe laughs, fingers the moleskin in his hands. “Yeah, and they’d take one look at his track marks and shove him in the drunk tank to dry out.”

Roe leans into Babe a little bit, warm. “That’s one of the reasons that he hasn’t done it yet.”

“And another one?”

Roe looks at him and then looks away, suddenly shy. “Me. I told him that I’d never forgive him.”

“Eugene,” Babe breathes, and Roe looks back up and then leans forward again, kisses him, his lips soft against Babe’s lips.

“I don’t care if you pay me or not, Babe,” Roe whispers, and brings a palm up to Babe’s cheek, rubs his thumb over his cheekbone, under one tired eye. “I don’t care if you want to have sex with me for free. But please don’t ask me about the boys.”

Babe looks at him for a long time, his face flush, his mouth wet, and then he nods. “Okay,” he says, and then again, “Okay.”

Roe kisses him once more, can’t stop kissing him, and Babe pulls him close and Roe breathes him in and it’s alright in this one small moment, everything’s perfect, his hand in Babe’s hair, Babe’s fingers creeping up Roe’s side, both of them kissing and kissing and moving into each other and not leaving for one, two, three moments.

Babe pulls back to say, “I love you,” and Roe pretends not to hear.

 

 

 

**4.**

Snafu picks the mean ones, the drunk ones, the ones that the other boys will give a wide berth. He likes them when they’re angry, when they swing their spit-shined fists with vigor, when they hit Snafu and only get angrier when Snafu grins back red and white, when he tells them with blood in his throat that he likes it.

He likes them when they care enough to split flesh, knock teeth loose, break ribs, fingers, toes, crack Snafu’s bones with steel-toed boots, with crowbars, with strained, white knuckles – and Jesus this is always the best – the palms and fists and nails and the fingers that dig into Snafu’s throat when they try to choke him, try to make him say certain words, try to make him say that he loves them.

Roe had asked him once why he always chose the ones that would hurt him and Snafu had laughed a little, and he had sounded broken and he had sounded bitter, and he had said that it was better to get paid than be a punching bag for free. Roe had looked at him for a long time then, looked at him through tears, and asked him if it was better to feel pain than nothing at all.

And Snafu had shrugged and said, “Do it long enough and you don’t even feel pain anymore.”

 

 

 

**5.**

One of the first times that Babe had picked up Roe – this was in the beginning, when Babe was still paying, when Roe didn’t know he was a cop – Babe had asked him why he came to New Orleans. This was when Roe was still lying about everything, and he sugarcoats something flippant, something like he came down here to meet all these nice men, and Babe had looked sad for a moment before he pressed harder, saying, “No, really, why did you come down here?”

And Louisiana had always been home, but Roe had moved in with Snafu and his father the day his grandmother had died, had moved out with layered bruises and a fresh black eye a few years later, dragging Snafu onto a bus at midnight, quiet and crying and asking for a ticket to anywhere for the amount of money he had in his pocket, anywhere turning out to be New Orleans.

He says this to Babe with a lack of emotion that surprises even him, tells him about the trip down, about trying to find a job in the land of unemployment, about the first few awful times he tried hustling, about the first few awful – and wonderful – times he had tried drugs, about Snafu eventually following in his footsteps, about how he feels responsible for that most of all, about how he really hates himself for turning Snafu into what he became.

He tells Babe about his mama and he tells Babe about his papa and his grandma, and about the little house they had when everyone was still alive, the little house close to the bayou, where his father used to scare him with alligator stories, chomping Roe’s fingers until Roe dissolved into giggles, where his grandma used to practice her faith, her healing, where his mama used to read to him on the back porch, swatting at the horseflies with her wide, open palm. He tells Babe about the bad times, his mama dying first, his grandma last, and he tells Babe about Snafu’s father, who was a mean drunk, but even worse when he was sober and coordinated and able to reach the switch that hung above the fireplace.

He tells Babe about Snafu, and Babe asks him – just because of the way he talks, the way he smiles, the way Roe says Snafu’s name – if he’s in love with him, and Roe tells him that he could be if things were different, if he didn’t owe him for bringing him into this life, if Snafu had grown up sweet and soft and not like his father.

Babe says “Oh,” in what could only be described as relief and Roe smiles once, bright, but then stops smiling.

This is more than he’s ever told anyone, he says to Babe, his mouth swollen with sorrow, and Babe had taken his hand and held it for the longest time, kissing first the back and then the palm and then each finger.

“Thank you,” Babe says, and it’s for telling him the stories and it’s for being there and it’s for everything and Roe thinks that maybe Babe is different from all the other men, all the ones who use and discard and (mostly) abuse him, with hands and drinks and drugs, and he leans forward to kiss him, but Babe stops him.

“I should tell you,” he starts, and Roe watches as Babe’s eyes fill up, “I should tell you that I am a police officer.”

And Roe’s heart drops low enough into his belly that he feels sick.

He pulls back the covers from the bed slowly, sitting up and reaching for his boxers. He pulls them on, and he’s mechanical, he’s doing this without thinking, without feeling, he’s shut down everything else around him except for his movements here, and Babe places a hand on Roe’s bare shoulder and it burns and Babe asks him to please look at him, please let him explain, and Roe can’t, he won’t, continues to pull on his clothes and says, in a voice that’s unflinching, uncaring, without emotion, “Can I have the money, please?”

It’s on the other side of Babe, on the night stand, because Roe has gotten sloppy, has stopped asking for it first thing the last few times with Babe because it was Babe, because he had been nice and sweet and completely innocent in what he asked for and because Roe had grown soft around him, had fallen a little bit, and now he can’t believe how stupid he was.

Never again, he thinks, and: never again never again never again.

Babe says, “Can you at least look at me?”

And Roe says, “No,” holding his hand out behind him. And then in French, “Money, please.”

He feels the bills slip into his hands and it feels like more than what he asked for and he wants to cry but doesn’t, can’t, bends down to slide it into his shoe and then leaves the motel room, ignoring Babe’s pleas behind him.

He never looks back.

***

It had taken three more tries from Babe to get Roe to listen to him, once out on the street where the other boys had looked from Babe to Roe back to Babe again, uncertain whether they should intervene, and once in front of Roe’s own house, where Babe had followed him and Snafu had come out with a stolen pocketknife and threatened to gut Babe like a fish, his mouth curling into a violent smile, until Roe had spoken quietly to Snafu, asking him to go back inside, his fingers small and soft on Snafu’s wrist. Babe had written down his cell phone number on the back of his business card and slipped it into Roe’s hand when Snafu had left, told him that he would like to talk to him if Roe would let him, told him that he only wanted a chance to explain.

On the phone when Roe calls – late, so late in the night that he thinks Babe won’t answer but then he does – Babe tells him that he was sorry for not telling him sooner. He tells him that he’s a good cop (a really fucking great cop), and even more than that he loves what he does, and that Roe had (kind of, almost) been an assignment, in that he was supposed to pose as a john to get close to one of the boys and find out who was paying, who they could catch without a sting, who they could get on tape without anyone claiming entrapment. And Babe had chosen him out of everyone because Roe had been sweet and gentle and looking a little lost that night, a little drugged, a little blurred, and because he had felt it even then, that pull between them, that connection, only Babe had gotten a little too close, only he had done his job a little too well, and done something that he shouldn’t have – that first night, when they had had sex, when Roe had placed a warm palm on Babe’s knee and Babe had quivered, with fear or nerves or maybe something else, Roe had thought maybe desire – and now he was in too deep, he was too far gone, and he has compromised the entire investigation.

And – fuck, Babe mouths through the receiver, and Roe holds his breath, his fingers tight on the burner he picked up the night before just to make this call, Roe is trembling, quiet, doesn’t say a word – and now Babe doesn’t want to stop.

He says, “I still want to see you.”

And Roe says, “Why?”

And Babe says, “Because I think I love you.”

And Roe says, “You shouldn’t.”

 

 

 

**6.**

There are rules:

1\. Babe doesn’t talk about work around Roe. It’s unspoken in that Roe had asked him with his eyes and with his lips, had begged Babe to stop talking when Babe would mention a particular perp, a particular case, had bitten his tongue playfully, coquettishly, had kissed him until his mouth began to bleed. It’s unspoken in that Roe had told him through his hands, through his touch, that he just doesn’t want to know, he just doesn’t want to learn more than what Babe allows him, doesn’t want to be put in a position where he has to choose.

2\. Roe doesn’t talk about work around Babe. This had been spoken, in that Babe had rested his mouth against the side of Roe’s neck and asked, wetly, honestly, his throat raw and cracked and open, to not mention the other men he went with, the other boys he knew. And if this was because Babe would be obligated to report it, or because Babe just didn’t want to be involved, or because Babe couldn’t stand the thought – like some of Roe’s other johns – that Roe had been touched before him, will be touched after him, will continue to work while Babe is not around, Roe doesn’t know.

3\. Roe doesn’t mention Babe to the other boys in the plantation house, calls him a john or a date if someone asks, never says his name out loud except maybe to Snafu, who scowls every time he hears it, hurt and angry that Roe can find solace in someone that isn’t him.

(It’s not a rule, exactly, but Babe calls Roe a CI at work, calls him by a pseudonym if he has to, something he let Roe choose, but usually never mentions him because most of the time he spends with Roe is after hours, late at night, between one shift and another, a few peaceful moments where he can hold Roe and Roe can hold him back and it’s nice and it’s sweet and it’s a lifeline he can grip onto with bloody fingernails for the rest of the day.)

4\. They don’t go home together. Babe had invited Roe to stay with him one weekend, a careful, precise invitation that Roe had held between his teeth for a few moments, his eyes closed, before telling Babe that he couldn’t, that he shouldn’t, that the idea was so full of things that could go wrong, including Roe’s own ability to self-destruct, and Babe had nodded and didn’t say a word and seemed cold to the touch when Roe moved to him, brushing a kiss on the bridge of his nose. Babe had never asked again.

5\. They don’t talk about the drugs. About the ones Roe does, the ones he doesn’t, the ones he keeps with him in his pocket for when he’ll need a fix after Babe goes home because he can never, ever do it before, not when Babe looks at him in this sad, disappointed way, never saying anything with his mouth, but yelling it, screaming it, when he looks away. Babe has never asked Roe to stop, because that’s probably only because he knows (just like Roe knows) that Roe will never be able to.

6\. It’s more than just sex.

Because it is for Babe, who felt it first – truly and beautifully and entirely unafraid – and it is for Roe, who fought it, who didn’t want it, who told Snafu late one night after everyone else has stumbled to the house and into bed, Roe tucking his face into Snafu’s neck, his mouth grazing Snafu’s collarbone, that he wasn’t sure that he could ever feel this way again, after his mama and his papa and his grandma, after everyone he loved left him, he wasn’t sure if he could still feel it inside, besides what he feels for the drugs, which isn’t exactly love as it is want, need, and besides what he feels for Snafu, which is more than he can put into words.

It’s more than just sex and it’s more than just them having fun and Babe tells Roe that he loves him more than he should, especially since this situation is so delicate, so precarious, and Roe says it softly sometimes, small and half-whispered into Babe’s mouth, into the crook of his shoulder, saying, “I love you, I love you, I love you,” and meaning it with all of his heart.

 

 

 

**7.**

There are rules for Snafu, too:

1\. Don’t fuck up.

2\. Don’t fuck up.

3\. Don’t fuck up.

 

 

 

**8.**

Snafu comes home with a broken wrist, swallowing pain killers by the handful. “He was a doctor,” he shrugs, sitting down on Roe’s bed, holding his wrist still, wincing when Roe pokes at the swollen skin. “He already wrote me out a script.”

A couple actually, orange bottles of Vicodin and Percocet clutched in Snafu’s other hand.

“You need to go to the hospital,” Roe says and Snafu rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, right. The pharmacist already gave me the once over and barely let me have these.” Snafu jostles his arms enough so Roe can see the tracks, the painful-looking holes that never seem to close. “It’ll be fine, cher. Just wrap it in those bandages and it’ll heal itself.”

“Snafu,” Roe says, sadly, but does as he’s told, wrapping the elastic around and around Snafu’s wrist, Snafu’s flinches fuelling his anger. He doesn’t ask why Snafu does this to himself, because asking has never done any good, Snafu knows less about himself than Roe does.

“I’m sorry,” Roe says, and his voice feels wet, pained. “You shouldn’t have to do this. You should have a nice job, a family; you shouldn’t be wasting your life like this.”

Snafu looks at him with dark eyes, opens his mouth and then closes it again. He says, in French, “You are my family, Eugene. And fuck you if you think I’m here for any other reason than that.” He swallows once, and he’s angry, at himself and at Roe and at everything. “I’m never leaving you, so just get fucking used to it.”

It’s this that scares Roe the most, the dependence Snafu seems to have, the way his words are cruel even when speaking to Roe, his tone dark, his eyes dark, his mouth a wet line on his face, a smear of red, a blurred line that Roe blinks at once and then again. Snafu has wanted Roe since Roe could remember, had dropped everything when Roe had told him that he was leaving, had ran with him without any regrets (even after his father, especially after his father), had wanted him with his eyes and with his hands and occasionally with his mouth, placing it on Roe when Roe was too tired or angry or fucked up to refuse, letting Snafu have his body because he’s never been sure what else he could give him, he’s never been sure how else he could make all of this up to him. Snafu doesn’t touch him now, not actively, not possessively or sexually, but Roe knows that he will want to later, when he’s rolling on pain killers and unable to stop his hands, unable to stop himself.

And Roe will let him.

Roe nods now, looks back down at the elastic in his hands, rolling it smoothly over Snafu’s arm. “Okay,” he says, defeated. “Okay.”

Snafu smiles, and it’s sharp.

 

 

 

**9.**

He shoots up.

It’s not immediate, and it’s not as overwhelming as the first time, but it cures the itch he has when he’s not taking any drugs, when he’s not high, when he pretends that he wants to be clean for five, ten, fifteen minutes, coming down hard enough to peel the paint from the walls, screaming and cursing and shivering and yelling out for Snafu and feeling like he’s gonna die, especially when Snafu would feed him ice chips from the freezer and paste a cold, wet, scratchy towel on his forehead and then shoot up right in front of him, blissing out with a watery smile on his face, his fingers hot enough to burn when he reaches over for Roe’s hand, telling him that he was stupid, telling him that clean living is not really all it’s cracked up to be, that it’s not what any of them want, need, should be concerned about, telling him that drugs are just as bad as anything else, really, who cares about the people who aren’t doing it, who cares about the people who don’t know what this feels like, this warm sensation in the pit of your stomach, first contained and then blossoming outwards, crawling through your bloodstream, this feeling of love, Snafu’s wide smile stretching across his face, and Roe’s teeth chattering, his eyes leaking tears, his quiet, rasping breaths and then his quick, nimble fingers, “Please, please, please,” as he gives up, as he gives in, as he grabs for the drugs.

The longest he ever got was a week.

And, even then, he had felt betrayed when Snafu filled the syringe and gave it to him, had felt angry at him and at himself and at the job that he has to do, the men that he has to work for, the men who press against him and pay him for it, the men who hit Snafu because they can. He wants to be good, but being good has never been in the cards, not when he had grown up in a loving home and done everything he needed to to please and had still ended up here, with Snafu, with the other boys, with the drugs.

His grandmother had healed addicts with her hands, and once – in the hazy afterglow of some particularly heavy drug – he had called out for her. He had been raised to believe, had made himself believe, that she would always be there for him – a sweet, whispered promise on his forehead when he was only small, her breath across his face, a brush of her dry lips – and he had wanted to put it to the test, had wanted to ask her to help him, to heal him, to take away the sickness that he feels every day, had called out to her over and over again, his voice hoarse with her name, had cried when she hadn’t appeared, great heaving sobs that wracked his body violently, Snafu pressing him close, telling him that it would be okay, crying with him when he wouldn’t stop.

He had tried it again a few weeks later, and again after that, and once more and then twice more and now every time he takes the drugs, his grandmother’s name on his lips as he calls out to her from his bed, from alleyways, parks, the stale air of a locked car, the warmth of someone else’s skin, the cold metal of a bus bench, calls out to her and forgets what he was doing it for. It never changes, this feeling, never means any less to him, never gives him pause, never makes him stop, his small hands and the holes on his body.

He tells Babe about this, one time when Babe catches him, the saint on his chain that he pulls into his mouth, that he tastes with his tongue, the call out to his grandmother when he kisses it, had told the tale of the traiteurs to Babe, had recounted the visits to the house, his grandmother’s healing hands, her prayers, her love. Babe had asked him if he thought he would be here if she had laid hands on him before she died and Roe had looked at him for a long time, his careful gaze, and had slowly shaken his head.

And Babe had looked away and then looked back, shyly, had told him that maybe it was a good thing if she didn’t, because they never would have met then, color rushing to his cheeks, a sweet, translucent shade of pink.

And Roe had smiled only slightly, had said, “I guess not,” and opened his mouth to let Babe kiss him.

He’s not so sure it’s worth it.

 

 

 

**10.**

Sledge is an investigative journalist from Mobile, Alabama. He’s the only client of Snafu’s that doesn’t kick or punch or burn him, asking instead for gentle, safe, sweet kisses, asking instead for Snafu to hold him sometimes, to touch him, to pretend to love him.

He did a piece on the war last year in Afghanistan and Iraq for a well-known magazine, came back on a plane with body bags, had wept in the bathroom at his own welcome home party, telling all of this to Snafu the first night he met him, when Sledge was just a john with a car and a slow drawl, when Snafu was just a hustler with a split lip from the night before. Sledge had asked if he wanted to go for a ride and Snafu, with a lit cigarette on the clean side of his mouth, said, “Sure, if you’re paying,” which Sledge was, so Snafu didn’t much mind the soft hands, the kind heart, the look in his eyes when Snafu touches Sledge somewhere he wants to be touched, when Snafu reads his movements with precision, when he does what Sledge wants before he even knows he wants it.

They meet twice a month, Sledge making the trip up from Mobile without a fuss, giving Snafu little tokens of Alabama, wildflowers he picked up from the side of the road, a tiny replica of the USS Alabama, a stuffed alligator from the Birmingham Zoo. It’s funny, these things that Sledge gives him, funny and sweet and embarrassing enough that he doesn’t even show Roe, doesn’t ever take them back out again after he buries them in the bottom of his backpack, under old shirts and socks and dirty underwear. He’s never been one to accept gifts that aren’t drugs or pain, but he can’t make himself throw them away, can’t quite bring himself to refuse them.

Sledge is a real gentleman, the nicest date Snafu has ever had, so he’s learned not to show up with bruises because inevitably Sledge will get that look in his eye like he wants to do something heroic, something to take Snafu away from all of this, and he’ll ask him if it hurts and he’ll ask him if he needs anything and he’ll ask him if he wants to take it easy this time, no sex, just some kissing maybe.

He’s also learned to shoot up beforehand, too, so he’s not itching for pain, so he can tolerate whatever Sledge will want from him, Snafu smiling thick and liquid, his hands trembling only minimally.

Sledge has never wanted to hurt him, but only because Sledge has never wanted to be hurt.

“I know what humans are capable of,” Sledge had said that first day, after he had told him about the pictures he had taken in the Middle East, after Snafu had lain with him and stroked his hair and kissed his forehead and forgotten to correct him when Sledge had called him by a different name.

“I know how much pain people can inflict,” Sledge had said, fingering the purple handprints on Snafu’s hips.

“I know what it’s like to feel hurt.”

And Snafu had wanted to say, “It feels good, doesn’t?”

***

Sledge comes down a couple weeks after John Julian makes the newspapers, tells Snafu that he would love to do a piece on the boys, on their johns, on the inherent dangers with both. He feeds Snafu alcohol, lights a joint, pulls out his laptop, and lets Snafu talk. About anything, about everything, about him and about Roe and about John Julian sometimes, who he only barely knew here and there, who he shared a few dates with when one or another got tired of him, got tired of Julian.

Snafu tells him everything that he shouldn’t, everything that he’s wanted to for a while, and he can hear Roe now, his disapproving tone, his shuttered, guilty face, and a part of him wants to stop, but another part whispers for him to keep going, to let Sledge in, so he does.

“I only became this because of Gene,” he tells Sledge, taking a pull from the joint between his fingers. He smokes it like a cigarette, delicately, and Sledge watches his mouth. “I mean, I never wanted to be no rocket scientist, but this was all his idea.”

He passes the joint to Sledge carefully, their fingers touching briefly, before Snafu walks over to the hotel window, looks through the curtains to the parking lot, watches the cars for a while. Sledge hums slightly, urging him to go on, and Snafu turns back to him, his fists at his side.

“If we hadn’t have moved here, hadn’t have left St. Martin Parish in the first place, then maybe all of this would be different. If Gene had found a straight job, if we had never started this, then maybe I would have never met you,” Snafu looks at Sledge and Sledge looks back at him, and it feels like something is squeezing his lungs tighter and tighter and tighter, and breathing is almost impossible. “If my father had never –“ and he stops, suddenly quiet.

“What?” Sledge says, his fingers stilling on the keyboard.

Snafu looks at him for a long moment, his eyes dark, weighing the consequences of what he could say. Then he smiles, and it’s not kind. “Why don’t you put that down and come over here, Sledgehammer?”

And Sledge does.

 

 

 

**11.**

Sometimes Roe takes Snafu’s johns. Only when it’s been a rough night for Snafu and only when Roe has taken enough drugs to numb the pain and only when he’s feeling a little low, a little guilty, a little reckless, ready to be punished for all of his wrongs.

He takes the ones who like to bruise, but not cut, he takes the ones who like to choke, who like to bite, who like to hit – open palm, the sharp sting of a slap – who like to burn, who like to watch him run a stiff motel washcloth under the tap and press it to his bloody mouth, who like to watch him struggle to put his clothes on, to stumble, to limp away. He takes the ones who know every inch of Snafu’s body, but who have never laid a hand on his, who like to kiss him with more force than necessary, but turn away when he tries to kiss back, who press into him and hold him tight and won’t let go.

He takes the ones who would kill him if they could.

***

One night, Snafu gives him one of the regulars he’s fond of.

“He’s pretty gentle,” he whispers in Roe’s ear when Roe turns his way, sliding the wad of twenties from the man into Roe’s back pocket. “He’ll only hit you a few times, you won’t even need Tylenol tomorrow. You’ll like him, though,” he says, his eyes burning into Roe. “You’ll like his stories.”

Roe nods and smiles sweetly at the john who turns his way. “Want to go for a ride?” he asks, and the man looks from him to Snafu and then back again, his Adam’s apple quivering under the streetlight.

“Sure,” he says, a little stutter in his voice, before opening the car door for Roe.

“Thank you, sugar,” Roe says, and gets in the car, buckling his seatbelt in one fluid motion.

The man drives north, away from the alley, from the French Quarter, and tells Roe that his name is David. His hands tremble on the steering wheel, and he flexes them a few times, nervously, and Roe doesn’t mention how awful a liar he is, how many tells he ran through just now when he mentioned his fake name.

“My name is Eugene,” Roe says, only because he always gives his real name, and he slides a hand across the seat, curling his fingers around David’s thigh. David jumps a little, stiff, but Roe’s fingers slide up and down a few times, warm, and he relaxes.

“I don’t normally do this,” he says, and – lie, lie, lie – his lips snake into a small smile. “Merriell has been very kind to me, though, he’s helped me through a lot of things. Is he your friend?”

“Yes,” Roe says, looking out the window, his fingers dancing over the denim expanse of David’s leg. “We’ve been friends for a very long time. I’m glad he’s helped you.” He looks back again. “I’m sorry he couldn’t be here tonight, but I think I can help you, too.”

David takes his eyes off the road briefly, brings them to meet Roe’s, his teeth bright white in the dark of the car, sharp. He looks excited, looks happy, and he says, “I think you can, too.”

***

It’s not his house, but a friend’s, David tells Roe when they pull into the driveway. Another lie, although Roe can see that his tells are thinning out, that he’s sharpening his skills, that the nervousness must be wearing off. It’s a plantation house not unlike the one Roe and the others live in, but this one sits behind a large iron gate, the driveway lined with weeping willows, the long white columns crawling with ivy. The porch creaks and moans under their weight, and David opens the front door with a key on his key ring, cupping it with his hand so Roe can’t see which one – smart, he thinks, although he knows that Snafu has probably already palmed and copied it if he was ever brought to this house – holding the door open for Roe.

It smells like dust inside, like mold, like all of the old houses that were around when Katrina hit, but David apologizes for it anyway. “My friend hasn’t been able to hire a contractor yet,” he says. “A few of the rooms have been shut off, but we won’t need those tonight.”

It looks like – even of the rooms still open – most have been left untouched, furniture shrouded in white sheets, wooden boards still biting into the windows, the thick, humid air unmoving below dusty, brittle fans. David turns on a light in the hallway and says, “The bedroom’s up there,” pointing to the stairs, straight-necked balusters and great, curving railings carved from cherry wood.

“Lead the way, handsome,” Roe says, and David blushes at that.

The bedroom is cavernous, colored in warm hues and inhabited with antique furniture, and Roe runs his hands over the white porcelain of the water basin standing beside the bed, feels the cold against his sweaty skin. “This place is beautiful,” he says, and walks over to the bed. “May I sit down?”

David hasn’t moved out of the doorway, doesn’t move now, but nods his head in answer. Roe sits down on the bed and unbuttons the first few buttons of his shirt, revealing the skin of his chest, watches David look down at Roe’s hands, swallow, look back up.

“Do you want to come over here?” Roe asks, and David nods again, yes, and walks over to him, stopping a few feet short, stuttering and then starting again, almost collapsing on the bed. Roe smiles widely, honestly, and slips his shirt off. “Tell me what you would like.”

David looks at his hands in his lap and then, “Can you take your clothes off, please?”

“Of course,” Roe says, and does, toeing off his boots and slipping off his jeans and his boxers. He goes to pull his chain off, too, but David stops him.

“You can leave that on,” he says, and Roe shrugs.

“Okay.”

David lets out a little breath. “Can I touch you now?”

“I would love for you to touch me,” Roe says, leaning back on the bed, his mouth red in the space between them, wet. David reaches over and places Roe’s face in his hands, leaning down to kiss him once, softly, before a little harder, a little faster, biting his lips until Roe can taste blood in his mouth.

“You like that, don’t you?” David asks, and Roe knows to say yes, to say yes he does, and oh yes he would love some more. Snafu had given him all of his lines, had coached him in the etiquette of this. “I knew you would.”

David straddles Roe now, pulling off his own shirt, rubbing the rough denim of his jeans against Roe’s naked skin. He kisses him once more, gently, Roe’s mouth sore around his tongue, before reaching his hand back and slapping him in the face. Roe sucks in a breath through his teeth at the pain, but doesn’t cry out, has learned not to, only smiles up at David, red on his teeth.

He’ll have a bruise in the morning, and he knows just what Babe will say.

“You taste even sweeter than Merriell does,” David whispers into his cheekbone, having leant down to kiss the blooming spot there, the warm blood pulsing through Roe’s cheek. “Julian, too.”

Something in Roe’s brain sparks at the memory of that. You’ll like his stories, Snafu had said.

“Did you used to date Julian?” Roe asks, and David slaps him again.

“Yes,” he says, “Before Merriell. He wasn’t as forgiving as Merriell, as pliant, but his skin was very soft, very sweet.”

“I bet he looked lovely after a night with you,” Roe says, his voice hushed, and only Snafu would have been able to hear the disdain there, but only Snafu would have been looking for it. “Lots of color on his cheeks.”

“Oh, yes,” David breathes, and hits Roe again, this time with his fist. Roe sees stars.

“When did you stop seeing him?” Roe asks, his voice a little hoarse from pain, and David unzips his fly, pulls his pants off. He starts to turn Roe around, his hands rough, but Roe leans up and kisses him again, bites his own lip so David can taste the blood on his tongue, so he won’t move him, so Roe won’t lose momentum.

“Well,” David says, and then laughs, a short, cold sound. “I guess it was the night he died.”

“Oh yeah?” Roe asks, bucking his hips a little, feels David shudder against him. “You must have been disappointed.”

“In a way, I guess,” he says, and then pulls Roe to him, tighter, places one hand hot on Roe’s belly, lets his fingers walk down Roe’s skin. “It was a waste, but then again,” he brings his teeth down on the place behind Roe’s ear, bites the skin there, laps at the swollen skin with tongue, “he did look beautiful that night.”

Roe feels his heart start to beat harder in his chest, his fingers scrabbling at David’s back, his face already pulsing with pain. “I bet there was a lot of blood,” Roe whispers, and David laughs again.

“So much blood,” he says. “It was the best thing I’ve ever seen.”

Roe smiles back at him, dangerously, sharply, and slowly extricates himself from David’s hold. He leans down to grab his pants. “I was hoping you wouldn’t say that,” he says, and pulls out the knife Snafu had slipped in his pocket with the cash. “I was really hoping.”

David looks confused for a moment before he looks surprised.

Roe slits his throat before he even opens his mouth.

 

 

 

**12.**

(That night, he dreams about Snafu’s father.

It always ends the same.)

 

 

**13.**

The case is all wrapped up in a pretty little bow, waiting on Babe’s desk when he walks in the station on Monday. One anonymous tip, handwritten in terrible pencil scratches that must be the work of one of the deputies, leads Babe to the plantation house where the current owner had left a mountain of evidence to be collected and analyzed and packed away in a neat little file boxes, sealed and catalogued and stowed away, only to be brought out again if there’s ever an indictment for murder, which would of course only happen after they could find the guy to indict in the first place.

Babe puts out a BOLO and creates flyers and tells Roe to tell all of the boys to keep an eye out, to not approach, to steer clear if they ever see him. Roe says of course, he wouldn’t dream of it, and forgets he spent the night before washing his hands in bleach, Snafu cleaning the blood out from under his fingernails, forgets that he let Snafu sleep with him, Snafu’s cold hands on Roe’s warm bruises, his soft mouth on all of Roe’s sharp angles.

Babe says, “I’ll feel a little less worried about letting you work once this guy’s off the streets.”

And Roe lies and says, “Me too.”

 

 

 

**14.**

There’s been five so far, not including Snafu’s father.

All johns, all men who have kicked and punched and almost killed the boys that Roe and Snafu work with, sometimes Snafu himself, sometimes Roe himself, but only when his judgment is a little off, only when they flash smiles that Roe can’t read well enough, because of the drugs or whatever, only when Roe is the only thing between them and the safety of his boys. Most of them are hardly missed, without a loving family to pursue the case, so it’s easy, fucking ridiculously easy to do it and cover it and make sure that nothing will ever come back to him or Snafu or anyone else.

It’s easy, so easy to do it and wash himself clean with the haze of speed, shoot up, forget what he’s done, shoot up, forget what Snafu asked him to do, shoot up, forget why he did it in the first place.

He kills and he kills and he kills, and this is one thing that Roe will never tell Babe, no matter how many times Snafu uses it against him, no matter how many times Snafu threatens to expose him, no matter how many times Snafu has whispered into his skin that see, see, Gene, nobody could love you as much as I do because they don’t know you.

They don’t know what you’re capable of.

What you’ve done for me.

Who you’ve killed.

Babe will never find out because Roe will never let him find out, because Roe will never let Snafu come between him and Babe, because Roe would rather put Snafu down than have to see Babe looking at him like he looks at other criminals, like he looks at Snafu.

Roe would rather kill Snafu then have Babe find out who he really is.

 

 

 

**15.**

This is how it began:

Snafu had come home drunk, again.

Skipping school, again.

Mouthing off, again, flinging the open flask in his hand in wide semi-circles, drunk and stumbling over his own words, his father sitting in front of the TV with his hand around the sweating silver pop-top can of beer, his fist getting tighter and tighter, listening to Snafu dig his own grave, his face getting red and redder, and then the sharp crunch of the can as Snafu went too far, said too much, and his father getting up and reached for the switch above the fireplace and Snafu smiling wide and already pulling his shirt over his head, ready for it, ready for the punishment, when Roe walks in the door, tense, apprehensive, and Snafu’s father lifts the switch and lets it fly and hits Roe instead of Snafu, hits him once and then again and then again and again and can’t stop, won’t, even when Snafu begs him, even when Roe pleads, calls out for his father, his mother, his grandmother, lifting his hands weakly to block the blows. Snafu yells and keeps yelling and his father is saying something long and loud about how maybe Snafu will listen this time, but he doesn’t, of course he doesn’t, because he runs to get the rifle his father keeps in the closet.

It’s not hard, pointing it at him, Snafu has been shooting his whole life, once a hunter, always a hunter, but he’s trembling so violently that the gun is barely effective, the shot going wild in the small space of the house. His father stops and Roe is gutted below him, bleeding and quiet and scared, and he looks at Snafu and Snafu looks at him and it’s nothing for Snafu to hand him the rifle, Roe’s hands slick with his own blood, and for Roe to point and shoot and kill Snafu’s father dead in less than a minute.

They had been talking about this for more than a few months, dreaming about it for longer, discussing ways to protect themselves that began with leaving and ended – always ended – with killing Snafu’s father. It was a game, and even more than that it was fun, but right now in the dirty, dusty space of the house with Snafu’s father bleeding heavily into the carpet, Roe leaning on the rifle for support, Snafu looking at the lifeless eyes of his father, it feels like they’ve been the ones who were shot.

Snafu leans over to vomit on the side of the couch and Roe closes his eyes and then opens them again.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

And Snafu says, “I don’t think I’ll ever be okay.”

And Roe says, “I know.”

***

Staying has never been an option.

***

They buy bus tickets to New Orleans.  



End file.
